Policy regime and coordination power: comparing digitalization in Japan and Korea

Since the 1990s, changes induced by digitalization have posed new challenges to nurture national economies. Yet even in the process of adopting identical technologies, countries have differed in their patterns and speed of adaptation. This study focuses on the markedly different patterns of development in the digital transitions of Japan and South Korea. Despite sharing a similar statist coordination institutional model, Japan has been slow to adapt to rapid technological changes, while Korea has adapted far more quickly. What constitutes the differences? While this paper follows statist coordination approaches, it emphasizes that states in East Asian developmentalism, such as Japan and Korea, are neither unitary and nor cohesive. To explain the diverging patterns in Japan and Korea, we explore their different policy regimes. Policy outcomes mainly emerge from different methods to resolve conflicts among key in-state actors, as well as social actors outside the state, in the process of policy formation and implementation.